New York Times (NYT) tech reporter Taylor Lorenz said she was attacked by Silicon Valley elites on Clubhouse. Lorenz made the claims on Twitter Thursday morning.
“Woke up today to ppl trying to reset my passwords and hack into my accounts, vicious, disgusting threats. Apparently a bunch of VCs, tech ppl etc spent all night bashing me in Clubhouse @pdavidson is this the community you sought to cultivate? How do you plan on addressing this?” Lorenz tweeted.
Clubhouse is a new and exclusive social network Wired dubbed Silicon Valley’s latest “idée fixe,” which is joined by invitation only. Last month, Lorenz wrote an article about it titled “The Hot New Thing in Clubby Silicon Valley? An App Called Clubhouse.”
Created by Paul Davison and former Google engineer Rohan Seth, Clubhouse is still in its beta (test) version. Yet, already it boasts users ranging from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and VC Andreessen Horowitz – who won the bid to invest in Clubhouse – to E40 and MC Hammer.
Lorenz called the app the place “venture capitalists have gathered to mingle with one another while they are quarantined in their homes.”
Throughout her article, Lorenz explains how Clubhouse works, who frequents the app, what types of topics are discussed and how addictive test users say it is.
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Despite what Lorenz calls a positive portrayal, she says she’s been targeted by VCs and hackers in the app because she challenged their intentional exclusion of journalists from the platform.
“I loved Clubhouse. I wrote about it so positively because I was so excited about the platform and it’s potential. I believe @pdavidson to be a thoughtful leader. But I question the decision to cultivate an exclusive community of rich, powerful, ppl with no accountability,” Lorenz continued in her thread on Twitter.
She also said she was “shocked and disgusted” by the behavior.
Users gave Lorenz an outpouring of support after she posted her series of tweets about the incident. One user identified as Arti D even said all the big tech publications needed to cover Lorenz’s claims.
“This needs to be covered by all tech publications. VC bros are reaching new levels of chauvinism & the social media platforms tht they helped build are being weaponoized by them to harass journalists for doing their jobs @verge@TechCrunch@nytopinion@PandoDaily@TheAtlantic,” Arti D tweeted.
Kara Swisher of the Recode Decode podcast fame replied she was “on it,” while Life Wire’s Editor-In-Chief Lance Ulanoff said it was “unbelievable” how immature Silicon Valley VCs were.
